Central Coast Special Olympics relieved there won’t be funding cuts

Special Olympics officials and athletes on the Central Coast are breathing a sigh of relief after learning President Trump will not cut federal funding.

In Monterey County, The Northern California Special Olympics serves more than 3,000 students.

One of their newest programs, the Unified Champion School Program, has been a part of Monterey County since 2013.

The chief development officer told KION it is a critical program to teach students both with and without disabilities about the importance of including everyone.

The organization said taking away funding from that could have been detrimental.

“It’s been an amazing way to take students from special education and integrate them fully with students without disabilities onto sports teams and provides them that extra layer of socialization and opportunity to really be embedded in their school community and no longer segregated,” said Kathryn Morrissey, Special Olympics Northern California.

“As soon as we started talking about the Special Olympics it was amazing how many people that we didn’t realize had been effected,” said Greg Ahn , President of Folktale Winery.

About a third of the Northern California Special Olympics money comes from the federal government. The rest of the funding comes from private and corporate fundraising.

The next local fundraiser will be held at Folktale Winery in Carmel. It’s called “Sip and Swing”. It will be held at the winery from 4:30 to 8:30 p.m.

For tickets click here and more information about the winery click here.